TMNT: Risks
by princessebee
Summary: Raphael wasn't used to letting someone take care of him. But he couldn't say no to her. Raphril, 2k14 'verse. Some swears and mild sexual references.


_This story as inspired by a piece of fanart by __ladybajingoarts__ on tumbr, prompted to her by an Anonymous. _

**ooo**

"_Fuck!"_

The curse came out a lot louder than Raphael had expected, but the pain had taken him by surprise. The drop from the tunnel to the dojo floor was usually nothing, but usually he didn't have a four inch gash intersecting his deltoid and bicep. Gritting his teeth and scowling, he rolled his shoulders, clenched his fists and strode off across the dojo towards the den like it was nothing at all.

Leonardo, who was hanging his ninjaken back up on the wall, didn't miss a trick though.

"You'd better take care of that," he advised in that voice – that mild, even, _I'm not trying to tell you what to do except for the part where I totally am because I'm a know-it-all goody-two-shoes_ voice. And he gave Raphael that look. That pointed, calm_, later on I'm gonna be saying 'I told you so'_ look.

"How's about you do it once you're done giving Mikey his sponge bath, Florence Nightingale?" He snarled, not missing the opportunity to jostle Leonardo with his shoulder as he passed. His lips twitched to hear his brother's grunt of irritation behind him; ruffling ole Fearless' scales never stopped being fun.

Donatello was meticulously storing his tech gear in its little alcove and shot Raphael a careful, appraising glance as his bigger brother strode past. "It could get infected, Raph. Better let me take a look at it."

Raphael sneered. "I'm a big boy now, Mommy." And to emphasise the point, he puffed out his chest and flexed his arms back in one brusque gesture. It stung. It stung like a motherfucker, but he didn't even let an eye twitch as he reached the entrance to the lair proper, not pausing to stretch and cool down like his brothers were doing.

"Ah, let the big tough Raphie go," Mikey crooned behind him, stretching his hamstrings with an ankle clutched against his shell. "Maybe he'll finally get so ugly all the bad guys will just run away at the sight of him and save us the work. Hey Leo, I'm down for that sponge bath thing if you ar – ow!"

Shaking his head, Raphael moved through the lair towards the den, determined to claim the television and catch the match between Randy Orton and Dean Ambrose. Absent-mindedly, he gripped his arm where he'd been cut, numbing the sting beneath the pressure. He probably _should_ go wash it. At least.

But he was pulled up short.

Curled up in one corner of their pizza-box sofa, idly flipping through one of his muscle magazines, was April.

April, sitting there in the midst of their bachelor chaos, like a little ray of sunshine had cracked through the dozens of feet of tunnels and stone above their heads. Raphael felt his heart lurch in a way it never did when he was going into battle, and it left him confounded and defenceless.

April looked up from the magazine and caught sight of him hovering there, like a dumbass. She smiled, that huge dazzling smile that made his eyes smart.

"Hey! Splinter said you guys wouldn't be too long so I figured I'd wait."

"Hey," Raphael muttered back, finally getting his legs to move. _That's it, one in front of the other. Like you've been doing no problems the last umpteen years, dipshit._ "Didn't expect to see you for a while."

A little crease formed between her eyebrows. "Why not?"

Raphael shrugged, a muscle in his jaw twitching as his injury protested the gesture. "Dunno." _Because it seemed too good to be true._ He hesitated a moment as he pondered the seating arrangement. There was Master Splinter's chair. Off-limits. And then there was the sofa. Next to April. He _wanted_ to sit next to April. But he wasn't sure she'd want him to sit next to her.

She saved him the trouble of figuring it out.

"Why are you clutching your arm like that?" she queried, her voice suddenly alive with caution and concern.

Raphael started, having momentarily forgotten his injury. He dropped his hand, swivelled his neck to look at the bandage, hastily applied on the battlefield, now dark and filthy with blood.

"Jesus!"

"'S'nothing," he grumbled in reply to her exclamation, but she was already out of the chair and closing the space between them and the sweet scent of her hit him like a wave moments before she was right next to him, her warm, small hands gently reaching up to cup his bicep either side, turning his arm so carefully to peer at the dark slash imprinted beneath the thin gauze. If any of his brothers had tried to touch him like this, he would've swatted them away like flies. But for April he stood still, and endured.

"Raphael, this is not nothing," she said, her voice a curious mix of worry and exasperation. "We need to clean this up right now. Where's your first aid?"

"April," he began, his voice rough with irritation, finally shrugging her hands off him, welcoming the accompanying sting. It almost got his mind off the lingering warmth where her hands had touched him, like a brand. "Forget it - "

But she shot him a look that silenced his protests, tossing her head a little in that defiant way she had to meet his eyes. It was her _don't fuck with me_ look, and even though he found it mildly hilarious - he could snap her like a twig, after all - somehow he just knew he really shouldn't fuck with her.

"Bathroom," he mumbled, jerking his head towards it, his eyes still locked on hers. With a steely look and a stubborn set to her jaw, she led the way and he lumbered after her, resigned to his fate.

She sat him on the edge of the twelve-seater hot tub they'd salvaged from a long-abandoned storage container and that he and Donatello had rigged up to plumbing – regular submersion was a favourite activity and helped keep them all in good spirits - and fetched the first aid kit from the shelf.

April no longer looked so fierce as she carefully unwound the sodden and filthy bandage from around his arm. There was a look of gentleness in her eyes that kept his gaze riveted to her face, despite how obvious he knew he was being. It was too unreal, that she should be there doting on him as though he even needed it. He _didn't_ need it.

But as he sat there before her, catching the beat of her pulse in her neck, how the long auburn strands of her hair glinted in the light, with her scent - vanilla shampoo, strawberry bubblegum and the more subtle, visceral aroma of her own femininity - filling his nostrils (and oh _fuck_, he probably _stank _of sweat and blood and God knows what else) and the feather-soft touch of her fingers as they grazed again and again the rock hard muscle of his arm, he realised he wanted it.

April's brows again creased as the wound was finally unveiled to her solicitous gaze and her pink lips pursed together, making his gut twist and lurch in a way the sight of blood never had, not even the first time.

"Raphael," she sighed, as though he were simply impossible and turned those big blue eyes up to his with a tenderly reproachful gaze and he set his jaw and finally looked away.

"Just a scratch," he rumbled, gritting his teeth as she began to carefully - oh so carefully - clean away the crusted blood from the wound. It hurt like hell but damned if he was gonna show it.

Over and over, warm, wet cotton sponged gently at the tender rent flesh, came away the colour of rust, was discarded in a steadily growing heap. Raphael kept his head turned away from her but couldn't help watching from the corner of his eye. There was a little frown of concentration on her lovely face as she delicately, gently daubed away and, as he watched her surreptitiously, the pink tip of her tongue edged out between her lips, cushioning the top one wetly.

Raphael was suddenly aware that his plastron was tight across his chest and his heart was pounding to outrace the wind. A distinct and unmistakeable physical reaction began and even sitting as he was, shoulders slumped and arms hanging between his thighs, the thought that she might notice was unimaginably horrifying.

"Here," he said brusquely, wresting the cotton balls from her and swabbing roughly at the gash which screamed in protest, a blistering pain he ignored as he turned partly away from her. April started at his roughness and eyed him with asperity. "I ain't some delicate flower."

Looking sidewards as he was to watch what he was doing, he could still see her in his peripheral and glimpsed an unmistakeable twitch to her lips followed by an eyeroll. Well. At least she didn't look pissed anymore. Or upset - he should've thought twice before grasping at her hand so rough. She would be too easy to hurt if he wasn't careful and he was tempered abruptly by remorse.

"You okay?" He queried her shortly, balling the stained wad of cotton in his fist and tossing it at the bin, glancing back at her fully, needing to see for sure.

Her eyebrows shot up and an amused smirk edged up one corner of her lips, her arms crossing over her chest. "Me? I'm just fine. You're the injured one, remember?"

"Hmpf." His hard-on had subsided but she looked so goddamn cute standing there all sassy and doling it out to him that his loins were stirring again and he looked quickly away from her as she stepped forward and once again lay those sweet, warm, soft hands on his skin.

"C'mon tough guy, hold still long enough to let me finish fixing you up and then I promise to stop with all this torturous emasculation."

Torture. He barked a short laugh as April disinfected the wound and began to apply the butterfly strips, her sweet fingertips eliciting sting after sting from the terribly sensitive edges of his torn skin. If she only knew exactly how she tortured him right then, with a long lock of her hair falling down over her shoulder to brush against his, the faintest shadow of her cleavage visible as she bent forward to closely watch was she was doing, carefully but firmly pulling the separated flesh together and securing the strips. Emasculating? Hardly.

Nothing else he could think of made Raphael so profoundly aware of his masculinity as April O'Neil.

Raphael felt his pulse rise again as she unconsciously bit her lip, bent forward so close the tickle of her breath caused his frayed nerve endings to dance, and applied the final strip. Goddamnit, she was so gorgeous.

"Done!" She exclaimed triumphantly, straightening up and tossing her hair back over her shoulder in a gesture that left him breathless. "Now if you can stand just a few more seconds of being my prisoner, I'll wrap it up and release you."

Her blue eyes were twinkling with mischief as she unwrapped the fresh gauze and he felt abashed and ashamed knowing she had no clue of the thoughts that were running through his head, no idea the effect she had on his body and mind. He might've squirmed had he not been so intent on maintaining his macho bravado. As she quickly wound the bandage round and round his massive arm (damn, her hands were so tiny), he couldn't resist lifting his eyes to her pretty face again, searing the detail of every eyelash, every faded freckle and every tiny crease in the soft pink of her full lips into his memory – knowing too well he would later revisit them in his imaginings, even as guilty as he would feel afterwards.

April finished fastening the bandage and gave his shoulder a quick pat. "There you go, that wasn't so bad was it?"

Raphael turned his arm to examine her handiwork and felt a warm flush run through him as he beheld the neat, clean bandage, safely securing the damage done beneath while it healed.

"Naw," he mumbled. The warmth he was experiencing was causing him some considerable consternation. Raphael had been the first to stop running to Splinter over scraped knees and skinned elbows and for as long as he could remember he had dealt with every battle wound – whether actually obtained on the battle field or in the dojo – by himself, refusing all support and assistance. The care and attentiveness April had shown in her ministrations were stirring up uncomfortable feelings – he'd enjoyed being taken care of. And that felt dangerously close to a weakness. His stomach pitched upwards and he inhaled hard, hating the lump in his throat.

The situation worsened as a strange contemplative look stole over April's features and she reached out to tentatively trace soft fingertips over the motley of raised and puckered scars that regularly intersected Raphael's scales, making his heart clench and his breath abruptly halt.

"Some of these are a mess," she observed, a little furrow across her brow.

"I patch 'em up myself," he admitted gruffly and she slowly shook her head, a wondering disbelief glinting in her eyes.

"Wouldn't it be easier to let one of your brothers help?"

"Don't need help," his voice was brusque and the ghost of a smile flickered across her mouth.

"Well, thanks for humouring me then," the gentlest of teases in her soft voice and he tensed, every muscle in his body stiffening, as that sparkle in her eye undid him within.

"Hmpf. Thanks. For helping out. Wasn't necessary. But thanks," he managed to force the words out, his voice low and rough. April sighed and swept her eyes across his body, taking in every scratch and dint in his plastron.

"Honestly, Raph, it's like you want to get hurt," she murmured, her voice tinged with mild rebuke and he recognised in it her concern and his guts twisted further.

"'S'risk I take," he grunted, holding himself as still as a stone as her touch elicited a lick of sweet sensation from every spot it passed. His belly was churning, his heart was roaring in his ears and he was aware of feeling horribly, dangerously vulnerable in a way he had never experienced before, as though April had stripped off his shell and peeled off his scales one by one and every tender, sensitive spot he had was exposed to her mercy.

Raphael, who never ran from a fight, had never wanted to run so badly before in his life.

But he couldn't move. Because to move would be break contact, to lose the warmth her skin radiated, to have the scent of her evaporate from his senses.

"Tell me the stories behind them sometime?"

April raised her eyes to his and caught him staring and her cheeks were stung with pink as she flushed, but she didn't look away. Raphael's heart stopped when she lifted her hand and boldly caressed the scar above his lip with her thumb, her touch making him tingle in one great rush, his groin suddenly throbbing.

"This one first?" she asked and while her clear gaze held his steadily still, there was a touch of shyness in her voice that made him feel a little crazy.

April dropped her hand as he managed a brief nod and then there was the rustle of sound at the doorway and he was on his feet in an instant, filled with dread about what weakness might've been witnessed, startling April backwards, the tension between them rudely broken.

Leonardo stood in the doorway of the bathroom – the door they had left open, he realised – taking in the scene with raised brow ridges. Raphael saw how his brother instantly noted the freshly applied bandage and the open first aid kit, the ruin of bloody cotton and April standing so close by his elbow looking more than a little flustered herself. He locked eyes with Leonardo, his jaw tight and teeth gritted.

"_Not a word,"_ his fierce glare said silently. _"Not one word."_

Leonardo hemmed. "If you guys are finished in here, I really need to go."

April sprang into action, jumbling the first aid kit back together, sweeping the waste up into the bin. "Sorry, Leo, we'll be right out." She sounded fine, if a little apologetic, but there was nothing else in her voice to give away what – whatever had just happened. As she put the kit away and washed her hands in the sink, Leonardo pointedly let his eye rove Raphael's bandaged arm and there was the unmistakeable twitch of a smirk on one corner of his mouth. Raphael exhaled and narrowed his eyes at his brother, shaking his head warningly as he elbowed his way past Leonardo, leaving April behind.

In the den, Michelangelo was sprawled upside down over the sofa, watching _Jerseylicious_ with a rapturous expression, shoving fistfuls of popcorn into his gob and it was only then Raphael remembered the match he'd been busting to watch what seemed like hours ago. He'd got the better deal, he allowed himself to think, heat rising in his cheeks, and turned back to see April following after him, a blister strip of painkillers proffered in her hand.

"Take a few of these, tough guy," she urged, her eyes a little pleading even as the smile on her lips anticipated his refusal and to make her happy he accepted the strip and popped a few into one calloused palm, then swallowed them dry.

"Okay?" he said, making it sound like a chore and she smiled, understanding.

"Thank you," she said and he just couldn't tear his eyes away from her, not when she smiled like that.

"Aw!"

Raphael's gut sank like a stone as he swivelled his head to find Michelangelo's attention now riveted on them. April tittered and shook her head at his numb-skulled brother's expression, resuming her former spot in the corner of the sofa and shoving at Michelangelo comfortably with her feet to give her more room, retrieving the magazine she'd discarded earlier and flicking through it once more. Raphael couldn't figure out how she could act so normal when it felt to him like the whole order of the universe had shifted, but it was the least of his concerns as his baby brother's baby blues eyed him up and down as though he knew something were different but just couldn't figure out what.

It took Michelangelo longer than Leonardo to identify the bandage wrapped around the colossal bicep of Raphael's arm but when he did, the exhilarated, taunting smile that spread up his face must've made his cheeks ache. Raphael balled one fist at his hip and shook it slowly, menacingly, but not even that would deter Michelangelo from revelling in his glorious realisation.

"It's just like a fairy tale!" Michelangelo crowed, his eyes glittering and huge. "T'was beauty tamed the savage beast!"

"Mikey," Raphael heard himself growl warningly as April looked up from the magazine and glanced from one to the other, a little quirk of amusement on her lips.

Michelangelo was already readying himself for flight, sliding right way up and inching his toes onto the floor. "Did she kiss it all better too?"

"That's it!" Raphael was propelled instantly into blinding fury, stampeding across the room to where Michelangelo was already scampering away quick as light, his mocking laughter ringing in his ears.

But as he barrelled across the den, determined to run his little brother down and pound an almighty lesson into him, April was twisting on the sofa to watch after them and even through the roar of his rage, her voice found him.

"You could've asked."

And Raphael found himself stumbling up short, his wrath immediately arrested. Stunned and slack-jawed he swivelled on his heel to stare at her where she leaned over the back of the sofa and smirked at him, her head cocked and the deep blue of her eyes hinting at possibility.

Michelangelo forgotten, Raphael cleared his throat and shifted his weight awkwardly, embarrassment and confusion leaving him speechless. Was she mocking him? The possibility rocked him to the core for a moment. 

As he continued to hesitate a little cloud of uncertainty shadowed her eyes and it suddenly bolstered his courage, though once again his heart pounded and his guts churned and the sense that he was exposing himself to terrible danger was profound.

"Maybe I will, next time."

And when she smiled, he knew the risk was worth taking.


End file.
